Part 4: Stigma of mental illness persists

Society's unfortunate natural instinct is to segregate anyone who is different

Photo of Camillo Zacchia, senior adviser for the Mental Health Education Office at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal.

Photograph by: Romualdo Barillaro
, Postmedia News

At least one in four Canadians will experience some form of mental illness during their lifetime, according to medical experts, and almost all of us will be affected by it through family, friends or colleagues.

Yet despite the proximity and ubiquity of mental illness, people in our society with a diagnosed mental health problem are frequently stigmatized.

Camillo Zacchia, senior adviser for the mental health education office at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal, says this is due in part to "the nature of human beings and their tendency to form groups. It protects us from predators but it also makes us feel superior and take an antagonistic approach to others."

This negativity frequently manifests itself as hostility toward people perceived to be different. In the past, says Zacchia, when we thought of mental illness, "we thought first of the need to separate people and put them in asylums to give them what they needed. Then, they were not like us anymore.

"Segregation is the root of most stigma because you make assumptions, and even if those assumptions are true in some cases, they are never true about all individuals."

Familiarity tends to give rise to greater understanding, he says. "The most effective way to combat the stigma associated with mental illness is through direct contact. When you interact with people, you discover that they are basically normal."

Ian Manion, executive director of the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health in Ottawa, says stigmatization can also be countered by talking freely about the disease and the way it affects people.

"We should be talking about these issues. But we should also be mindful of how we talk about them. If young people are given the tools, they can be resilient in the face of the stigma and recognize that their own well-being is more important than somebody else's attitude."

Sometimes, he says, "our own systems help to reinforce the stigma." For example, an individual with a chronic mental illness who makes repeated trips to a hospital emergency room is sometimes dismissed as a troublemaker and not taken seriously.

"As health professionals, we should serve as a bridge to get someone the right level of service at the right time. We need to promote sensitivity and wellness. It's partly about education, not just for the public, but also for anyone who works with young people - physicians, police, teachers, social workers and so on."

We all have a responsibility to educate ourselves, says Vancouver clinical psychologist and organizational consultant Joti Samra. "No one is unaffected by mental illness. All the stats tell us that one in four will juggle with depression or anxiety at some point. If we project the numbers, we see that even people not directly affected will have a partner, parent, child, friend or colleague who is. Mental illness is everyone's problem because we are all affected in some way."

Individuals will be more likely to ask for help when the message that mental illness is treatable is more widespread in our society, says Dr. Mimi Israel, chair of the department of psychiatry at McGill University and psychiatrist-in-chief of the Douglas Institute. "But destigmatization, desensitization and cultural change take a long time. So the sooner we get started the better."

This content is sponsored by Bell Canada in support of the Bell Let's Talk mental health initiative.

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